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WORLD / Europe
Fewer window prostitutes in Amsterdam
(Agencies)
Updated: 2007-09-21 11:04
Amsterdam - A non-profit corporation has purchased a large number of the
buildings where prostitutes pose in windows in Amsterdam's Red Light
district, the city said Thursday, in a deal that may lead to a third of
the windows being shuttered.
Buildings housing window prostitutes are seen in Amsterdam's Red Light
district in this May 1996 file photo. [AP]?
The move is intended to break a logjam in an multi-year effort by the
city to cut back on the windows, which it says are a magnet for crime and
money laundering.
Mayor Job Cohen said the move was not intended to get rid of prostitution
entirely, since it is part of the area's history and a major tourist draw
for the city.
"What we do want is to get rid of the underlying criminality," Cohen told
local television station AT5.
In Thursday's deal, public housing corporation NV Stadsgoed purchased 18
buildings with 51 windows for $35 million. That is around a third of the
windows in the Red Light District, though there are other prostitution
zones in the city.
NV Stadsgoed will redevelop some or all of the buildings, and because
they are not likely to be worth as much as housing or regular commercial
real estate, the city has agreed to reimburse the corporation by up to
$21 million.
"We don't know yet what's going to come in their place," Cohen said.
"We're very busy making a development plan, and we hope to have that
ready by the end of the year."
Amsterdam has been conducting a crackdown on criminality in the city
center for nearly five years, using a 2002 law that forces business
operators to disclose detailed accounting in order to have their licenses
renewed.
The seller in Thursday's deal, "Fat" Charlie Geerts, was ordered by the
city last year to close the windows because the city said he failed to
meet standards.
But he filed a legal protest and Amsterdam's District Court granted an
injunction against closures while he fought the decision.
With its scantily clad prostitutes posing in brothel windows and coffee
shops oozing the pungent aroma of cannabis smoke, the Red Light
district's seediness has always been part of its attraction.
Prostitution is legal in the Netherlands, and coffee shops are licensed
to sell small amounts of marijuana. But the district is a magnet for
petty criminals and, authorities believe, human traffickers, drug lords
and mobsters?-- who take advantage of the situation to launder money.
Prostitutes' rights organizations have generally been indifferent to the
crackdown, arguing that pimps are the main source of problems, not
landlords.
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